TekWar

OK, I was expecting the worst, when I first heard about this on the Sci-Fi channel (when it first came out in 1994, I must've been hiding under a rock or something). I mean, based on the Shatner novels, it even has Shatner in it, I was expecting total barf-o-rama.

But I was pleasantly surprised.

Mind you, it's *not* a classic, nor is it destined to become one. But it's actually pretty good entertainment. Lots of action, lots of cool techno gadgets (the scene of 'jacking in' to the Net, a' la Neuromancer, made it all worthwhile), the acting is fairly good, and the premise is interesting. It managed to hold my attention. Hell, I can even tolerate Shatner's occasional guest appearance -- his character, Bascom, is a sort of enigma -- you never know if he is really "the good guy", he has a LOT of secrets and things going on behind his back, etc., an interesting change from Shatner's most famous role as the "do-gooder" Captain Kirk.

In summary, I wouldn't go out of my way to buy or rent this title, but if you happen to catch it on the Sci-Fi channel (or have a friend who has it on tape, etc.) it's pretty good way of spending the evening.

I don't know how the books are compared to this movie, because I never read them. I hope their better though.

The basic plot of the story is Jake is a former cop who supposedly killed his teammates when they were trying to stop a drug lord. As a result, he's framed and sentenced to be cryogenically frozen. The character, Bascom, grants him early parole so Jake can stop the Tek drug from becoming an epidemic.

Although that plot sounds interesting on paper, it didn't work as well as I thought when I was watching it on YouTube. It wasn't given much praise by critics anyway. Here are some problems I had with it: The book setting is supposed to be portrayed in the 22 century. The movie setting ends up being a 90's semi-futuristic B-movie.

The acting and plot are okay, but fall short and become boring after a while.

The 90's B-movie tech and special effects often become a distraction from the acting and plot.

Being that this was a TV movie, its typical that it didn't have a big budget. However, I don't know if having a bigger budget would've saved it. Maybe if Hollywood decided to make this a stand-alone feature film, they could make it well enough that it becomes an A-movie and finally saves this franchise.

And I still do.

Now since this was originally released in 1994, there were no such things as "90s Clichés", D'OH, it was the 90s.

And back in 1994 my computer was running DOS 6.2 with Windows for Workgroups v3.1.1, so the technology represented in this reflected what people thought would happen in the future. We had Tek, we had Sims (mechanical reproductions of people), we had robots like Winger. We had an information super highway and police who traversed it, as well as fringe characters like Cowgirl (Stargate's Lexa Doig) and Wild Side (Richard Chevilleau). But the interesting thing is to see houses with secure entries, logins via hand print or retina scan, and we have these things today.

It was interesting that the main information highway that is shown in this series is called "The Matrix". And, the jeep that Jake Cardigan (Greg Evigan from my two dads) drives is electric.

There is a technology-based drug called "Tek", which apparently abuses virtual reality in some way to make the user unable to discern between the real world and a Tek VR.

This initial entry into this alternate universe is loosely based on the first Tech war book by William Shatner, which was ghost written by Canadian Sci Fi writer Ron Goulart- but he did in fact use William Shatner's concepts and storylines, so this is William Shatner's work as well as his. It's just that the excellent storytelling of the book was all Ron, and he has such an out rages way of telling a story. Fortunately, it did not transfer well to these TV movies.

No. When this show was produced, it wasn't produced to reflect the comedy and outrageousness of the original book. For example, Winger was made out of chrome he would always polish himself. But there are other funny things like Warbride, A woman who has married herself to war, played by the lovely Sheena Easton. I don't know if she had acted in anything but she does all right she's believable. And kind of funny.

And we are familiar with the actress who plays Beth Kittredge, if we were ever a fan of Stargate Atlantis. Tory Higginson.

Von Flores who plays Sonny Hokori was also in the Gene Roddenberry based "Earth: final conflict".

Which was another Canadian production. But this show, it was produced and distributed under Alex Beaton's "Universal Action Pack" which was responsible for shows like Vanishing Son, and it was also where the beginnings of "Hercules the legendary journeys" came from, they had about five feature-length Hercules "films"- you can't really call any of these productions "films", they were released for TV, and they are formatted 4:3, even when later released for DVD. So the "first season" of tech war was released as for feature-length movies, this is the first one, to be followed by Teklords.

But the coolest thing about this show was Warren Zevon singing the song at the end, "Are you real or not"

By standards of today, the show is rather primitive, maybe boring, maybe camp even. But in 1994, these four TV movies were extremely popular. As was the book and there was also a Marvel comics series. But it was an attempt to bring a book that was extremely popular to life, and for the most part, it worked. They got a lot of the details from the book absolutely right.

The TekWar franchise managed to support a long series of books, comic books, TV movies, and a TV, yet I never really met anyone who professed to be an actual TekWar fan. Instead from most people I got the vague sense that the series had been solely made and supported on the strength of being associated with William Shatner, so I figured this premier TV movie was as good a way as any to see if that was fair.

TekWar is stuffed to the gills with elements that are hopelessly hokey, yet it remains a curiously very watchable ninety minutes. In essence, this is a noir story of wrongful accusation, transplanted to the setting of a drug war in a cyberpunkish future. The fixation on virtual reality (that's what the drug Tek amounts to) is very dated to this time when VR was the technology fad of the day, just about every element of the bright, blippy production and design is cheesy to the point of laughable, and the dialogue is saturated with gangster-movie phraseology. But the basic story of a future cop wrongly convicted and pulled from cryogenic freezing years early (though why is cryogenic freezing considered an equal punishment to prison if one cannot perceive time passing?) is good material.

The budget doesn't seem to have been huge, but serendipitously that means some of the modified props have a genuine "a few years into the future" look to them. While a lot of the representations of technology look very 18994-trying-to-be-cutting edge, many of the concepts about where technology was going are actually quite sound.

In fact, the whole thing could have had its best side brought out if it were streamlined a little bit. Cut out some of the longer scenes that just show Tek working or show a visual representation of people hacking the future computers, cut out some of the more involved guesswork and intrigues that detract from Jake's personal story, and you could have a pretty strong SF drama with the suspense of a man trying to clear his name and the human interest of his trying to find his lost son and the wife that betrayed him.

Shatner's direction, though, if it does one thing, keeps the story moving despite sections that could easily bog down. He gives himself a supporting but important role, and is quite believable stealing some scenes as a powerful, manipulative politico/businessman. The rest of the cast is mostly adequate, with Greg Evigan putting a lot of energy into his lead as Cardigan but not really handling his big emotional moments. Torii Higginson stands out as Beth Kittridge.

TekWar doesn't escape the more ludicrous trappings of its status as an action-oriented TV movie from 1994 and set in the future, but beyond that's there's an interesting story in there. No concept is huge enough to make TekWar forever memorable, but the genre combination of noir- detective with cyberpunk-drugland is enough to be interesting. I can see why the series would have continued, but I can also see why it didn't generate a huge amount of real enthusiasm either.

I really loved this! The effects was pretty good, and the ideas was fresh enuff. I may be some years old (and it shows, if not *that* much), but still really worth a look (and maybe a purchase). RECOMMENDED!